A crayon in my pocket
Went through the dryer
Flung its staining spots
Over all my attire
Scrub the mistakes out
The sad little speckles
Make them like new
Erase the blue freckles!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Break out the party horns! Kiersten finally got around to writing something!
All right. I have been very remiss in blogging—on writing, journaling, vlogging, talking to people, period. Mostly. So I am here to remedy a little of that. Hopefully in a relatively succinct and pithy fashion.
1. Ignition! I want to blog about this eventually. i just can't write a good post about this. I'm sorry.
In a nutshell, lacking spit and polish and articulacy:
Friday night/most of Saturday = general feelings of I've-been-here-I've-done-this-what-am-I-going-to-get-out-of-this-but-emotional-high? Kind of depressing. Great conference, but I felt kind of on the outside, like I juts didn't have any really good reason to be there.
Saturday night = really good message. God also kind of pointed out my "daddy issue" with Him. I cried a little bit. My hands did this weird shaky thing. Chrissy and Emily and a couple of other blurry faces came and prayed for me, and I love them lots and lots and lots. I might have made friends with Erica, which is pretty cool. She's sweet. And I love God. A lot. And He's letting me know that He;s not passive about me. He does care when I miss spending time with Him. He really, really does. And He cares whether I care. Simple, right? I feel like I should feel stupid for not realizing that before, but it was always one of those things that went in one ear and out the other, you know? I never really felt like God loved me so much that he wanted to spend time with me every day. I think I might have had a breakthrough there. *insert interjection for emphasis here* I hope so. And having people pray for me was incredible—because, not by any fault of anyone else's, sometimes I forget that my friends love me too.
I think spending my weekend on a youth retreat was worth it.
2. School. Mostly, I like college. I spend an astronomically smaller percentage of my time now being miserable than I did in high school. But the last month has been insane. It's spring break this week; I'm gad to have a breather. I feel like such a wimp, taking 12 credit hours (which is full-time, but less than the average for an honors student.) (I am so sick of hearing "honors" anything.) and still feeling behind all the time. But I am hanging on. I really need to come up with a topic for my minimum-ten-page humanities paper about an aspect of life in a major urban city. And I need to take this gargantuan International relations exa—worth 20% of my grade— which my professor has postponed for three weeks already and which will be five weeks late if we finally take it after spring break. (Tuesday, March 8th—I get to take three exams on my nineteenth birthday. Yahoo.) I've never wanted to be done with any exam so much. I also need to study my part as Alice the Intern for a "team simulation" so I can…do…something that is a necessary part of my grade. My, my.
3. I want a vintage chocolate pot. I've always thought they were cool, and today I got to hold one in an antique market and it was GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, the cheapest one I've seen thus far—doing a little hunting on the Internet—is about $95, and the most expensive was upwards of $4000 (though that one, admittedly, was somewhere around five hundred years old. I didn't even know they had chocolate pots back then). So—we shall see. I want one. A lot. But I certainly cannot afford one myself, unemployed collegiate that I am.
4. Spring break…what am I ever going to do with myself for a whole week with no school? WRITE. Hang out with some of my amazing friends, both the Kalamazoo residents and those visiting from elsewhere. Try to get together enough of a D&D campaign to run an opening adventure. Get tight with God, because I want so much to be in love with Him and I don't think I am.
So…life. Crazy. Right now i need some sleep. Hopefully we (I'm not sure precisely who comprises that 'we" yet) making a trip to the Kalamazoo Art Institute after church tomorrow—should be fun! Hopefully I'll also make it to C&C (remonikered Dwell) tomorrow night! (For the first time in a month, dang.) Sometimes I want my life to slow down and sometimes I want it to throw me for an insane loop, and right now I can't even tell the difference. I just need to get some sleep. I think. I sort of want to cry for no reason, because crying, even when I'm not really upset, always seems to clear my head. An oddity of Kiersten or a normalcy of my species?
Guten nacht.
1. Ignition! I want to blog about this eventually. i just can't write a good post about this. I'm sorry.
In a nutshell, lacking spit and polish and articulacy:
Friday night/most of Saturday = general feelings of I've-been-here-I've-done-this-what-am-I-going-to-get-out-of-this-but-emotional-high? Kind of depressing. Great conference, but I felt kind of on the outside, like I juts didn't have any really good reason to be there.
Saturday night = really good message. God also kind of pointed out my "daddy issue" with Him. I cried a little bit. My hands did this weird shaky thing. Chrissy and Emily and a couple of other blurry faces came and prayed for me, and I love them lots and lots and lots. I might have made friends with Erica, which is pretty cool. She's sweet. And I love God. A lot. And He's letting me know that He;s not passive about me. He does care when I miss spending time with Him. He really, really does. And He cares whether I care. Simple, right? I feel like I should feel stupid for not realizing that before, but it was always one of those things that went in one ear and out the other, you know? I never really felt like God loved me so much that he wanted to spend time with me every day. I think I might have had a breakthrough there. *insert interjection for emphasis here* I hope so. And having people pray for me was incredible—because, not by any fault of anyone else's, sometimes I forget that my friends love me too.
I think spending my weekend on a youth retreat was worth it.
2. School. Mostly, I like college. I spend an astronomically smaller percentage of my time now being miserable than I did in high school. But the last month has been insane. It's spring break this week; I'm gad to have a breather. I feel like such a wimp, taking 12 credit hours (which is full-time, but less than the average for an honors student.) (I am so sick of hearing "honors" anything.) and still feeling behind all the time. But I am hanging on. I really need to come up with a topic for my minimum-ten-page humanities paper about an aspect of life in a major urban city. And I need to take this gargantuan International relations exa—worth 20% of my grade— which my professor has postponed for three weeks already and which will be five weeks late if we finally take it after spring break. (Tuesday, March 8th—I get to take three exams on my nineteenth birthday. Yahoo.) I've never wanted to be done with any exam so much. I also need to study my part as Alice the Intern for a "team simulation" so I can…do…something that is a necessary part of my grade. My, my.
3. I want a vintage chocolate pot. I've always thought they were cool, and today I got to hold one in an antique market and it was GORGEOUS. Unfortunately, the cheapest one I've seen thus far—doing a little hunting on the Internet—is about $95, and the most expensive was upwards of $4000 (though that one, admittedly, was somewhere around five hundred years old. I didn't even know they had chocolate pots back then). So—we shall see. I want one. A lot. But I certainly cannot afford one myself, unemployed collegiate that I am.
4. Spring break…what am I ever going to do with myself for a whole week with no school? WRITE. Hang out with some of my amazing friends, both the Kalamazoo residents and those visiting from elsewhere. Try to get together enough of a D&D campaign to run an opening adventure. Get tight with God, because I want so much to be in love with Him and I don't think I am.
So…life. Crazy. Right now i need some sleep. Hopefully we (I'm not sure precisely who comprises that 'we" yet) making a trip to the Kalamazoo Art Institute after church tomorrow—should be fun! Hopefully I'll also make it to C&C (remonikered Dwell) tomorrow night! (For the first time in a month, dang.) Sometimes I want my life to slow down and sometimes I want it to throw me for an insane loop, and right now I can't even tell the difference. I just need to get some sleep. I think. I sort of want to cry for no reason, because crying, even when I'm not really upset, always seems to clear my head. An oddity of Kiersten or a normalcy of my species?
Guten nacht.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Sunday night blues
I promise to get a post up about Ignition and awesome God-stuff soon. I poured a slew of stuff into a draft last night, but it's not really publishable in its current state. It's long and rambly and redundant and I would feel like a terrible writer if I let it loose on the Internet right now. I didn't have time to edit it today, because I went to church ten minutes after hauling myself out of bed and since then have been simultaneously trying to do homework and catnap all day, because I basically have felt exhausted, headachey, and ponderous (in the physical and mental senses). I've spent almost twelve consecutive hours now laboring over what should have been six hours' worth of homework at most. I missed out on testimony night at youth group, and missed going to Dwell (second week in a row—bah) and now it's almost midnight and I'm lonely…if there is one thing that makes me outright miserable lately, it's being the only one awake in the house, not of choice, but because of homework I didn't do. Maybe it's ridiculous, but it makes me feel sort of abandoned. Faugh, this character analysis essay is letting me down (I love doing character analyses, but doing them on a deadline sucks), and I'm dog tired, and Jesus is my lifeline (believing that). Anyway, I'll post about Ignition (hopefully) tomorrow. School this week is going to need a healthy dose of optimism. In addition to my normal homework load, I also have to do a six-page literature analysis of this 1980s movie and I have this ludicrously humongous International Relations exam on Thursday, which I'm getting more stressed about by the hour.
I do not want this week to happen.
Maybe it will look better after I've actually gotten some SLEEP.
Hannah, I should get those notes for you typed up soon! Hopefully tomorrow!
…Also, I got you and Gwen wristbands from Ignition, so (both of you, if you still read this, Gwen) remind me when you come to Kalamazoo!
I do not want this week to happen.
Maybe it will look better after I've actually gotten some SLEEP.
Hannah, I should get those notes for you typed up soon! Hopefully tomorrow!
…Also, I got you and Gwen wristbands from Ignition, so (both of you, if you still read this, Gwen) remind me when you come to Kalamazoo!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Disclaimer: Why yes, I am an English major…
I need to wear a sign that says this ^. I get ribbed for this a LOT. I don't even correct people's grammar in casual conversation anymore (mostly) (although i always make the effort to correct my siblings, because they actually take it to heart, haha). But people who read any of my papers or even some of my Facebook comments, as soon as I say, "I'm majoring in English," say something to the effect of "Oh, you would be." Two people have said this actually intimidates them, which I find interesting, because I am likewise intimidated by their sense of humor or awareness of the world or creativity or ability to debate or…the list goes on. Seriously, I think it's hilarious that anyone could be intimidated by me, period. I mean, have you met me? (Somebody was saying I needed to work on looking more intimidating after two different redheaded pessimists on the bus asked me out [and both of them were significantly older than me, and one of them had just divorced his wife, who left him after alleging he was trying to kill her…yeah. I stayed far away from that guy after that conversation. And then he got back together with her three weeks later and it was moot anyway].)
*This is another one of those posts that turned out much longer than I originally meant it to be; and this time it's all on the same topic, so I apologize if it's somewhat mundane.*
Even my English professor joked about it: we were discussing in class one day how our society is moving in a very visual direction, away from books and written entertainment to visual and audial entertainment like movies. He said , "Most of society is trending that way," and then he looked right at me and said, "Well, almost everyone." He also has made jokes about how I'm the only one in our class of 16 who said I enjoy reading literature.
A couple of people on IM in the last few days have randomly addressed me as "Miss English Major" (followed with this emoticon –> :P ) for no apparent reason. At least two dozen people at KVCC know I have a dictionary app on my iPod touch; one girl expressed mock surprise that I was willing to settle for an electronic dictionary instead of a full-sized print one. I got into an argument with one girl about the use of "cacophonous" in a certain sentence, and after we worked it all out, another girl applauded her (teasingly) for holding her own in a linguistics debate with me.
And then there's those moments when I'll unsuspectingly say something that uses either 1) an above-average number of polysyllabic words, or 2) words that are dated or downright archaic, or else typically employed only a literary context, which I don't realize because I learned them from spending my childhood reading novels instead of talking to actual people. I've literally had people ask me to translate sentences before. Is it something about college that suddenly my nerdiness for the English language is magnified in the eyes of my peers?
I get ridiculously excited over things like proper use of apostrophes in Google auto searches. And it's only in the last two or three years that it's really sunk in that that is not normal. Being good at—or caring about—the printed English language, apparently, is sadly abnormal for a sizeable portion of my generation of fellow Americans. Written English is apparently one of my idiosyncrasies., and I rather like it. But it's manifestly amusing to me that so many people seem to equate "I'm an English major" with "Huzzah! I'm an alien! You can't relate to me at all! I doodle on my knees with Sharpies!" (Which I do, but that's beside the point.) Also, most of my peers seem to assume that people with an English degree automatically want to teach (which I do not; I don't think I have the patience or the speaking abilities for it), and once I say something along the lines of, "I want to edit books for the next fifty years of my life" the conversation is basically dead. Nobody thinks editing is an interesting profession, and to the average person, it looks like a pretty straightforward job, so there's not much conversational material there. The same thing happens when I tell people I want to write—they say, "Oh, like you want to be a journalist?" and I say i want to write novels, which apparently comes off as much less adventurous, even though, technically, with the help of your imagination, you get to travel to places and see things no journalist ever will on the job.
Thus, I feel that I should just save myself the awkwardness of all these conversations where people have this reaction ^ and wear a sign, so they can find out my major before even officially meeting me, run through their subsequent mental processes at their own pace, and then we can be friends, and they can rib me to their heart's content without that awkward first conversation about "What are you majoring in?", and I can go on geeking out over the proper placement of possessive apostrophes and studying mythic poetry and writing effusive blog posts in relative peace.
*This is another one of those posts that turned out much longer than I originally meant it to be; and this time it's all on the same topic, so I apologize if it's somewhat mundane.*
Even my English professor joked about it: we were discussing in class one day how our society is moving in a very visual direction, away from books and written entertainment to visual and audial entertainment like movies. He said , "Most of society is trending that way," and then he looked right at me and said, "Well, almost everyone." He also has made jokes about how I'm the only one in our class of 16 who said I enjoy reading literature.
A couple of people on IM in the last few days have randomly addressed me as "Miss English Major" (followed with this emoticon –> :P ) for no apparent reason. At least two dozen people at KVCC know I have a dictionary app on my iPod touch; one girl expressed mock surprise that I was willing to settle for an electronic dictionary instead of a full-sized print one. I got into an argument with one girl about the use of "cacophonous" in a certain sentence, and after we worked it all out, another girl applauded her (teasingly) for holding her own in a linguistics debate with me.
And then there's those moments when I'll unsuspectingly say something that uses either 1) an above-average number of polysyllabic words, or 2) words that are dated or downright archaic, or else typically employed only a literary context, which I don't realize because I learned them from spending my childhood reading novels instead of talking to actual people. I've literally had people ask me to translate sentences before. Is it something about college that suddenly my nerdiness for the English language is magnified in the eyes of my peers?
I get ridiculously excited over things like proper use of apostrophes in Google auto searches. And it's only in the last two or three years that it's really sunk in that that is not normal. Being good at—or caring about—the printed English language, apparently, is sadly abnormal for a sizeable portion of my generation of fellow Americans. Written English is apparently one of my idiosyncrasies., and I rather like it. But it's manifestly amusing to me that so many people seem to equate "I'm an English major" with "Huzzah! I'm an alien! You can't relate to me at all! I doodle on my knees with Sharpies!" (Which I do, but that's beside the point.) Also, most of my peers seem to assume that people with an English degree automatically want to teach (which I do not; I don't think I have the patience or the speaking abilities for it), and once I say something along the lines of, "I want to edit books for the next fifty years of my life" the conversation is basically dead. Nobody thinks editing is an interesting profession, and to the average person, it looks like a pretty straightforward job, so there's not much conversational material there. The same thing happens when I tell people I want to write—they say, "Oh, like you want to be a journalist?" and I say i want to write novels, which apparently comes off as much less adventurous, even though, technically, with the help of your imagination, you get to travel to places and see things no journalist ever will on the job.
Thus, I feel that I should just save myself the awkwardness of all these conversations where people have this reaction ^ and wear a sign, so they can find out my major before even officially meeting me, run through their subsequent mental processes at their own pace, and then we can be friends, and they can rib me to their heart's content without that awkward first conversation about "What are you majoring in?", and I can go on geeking out over the proper placement of possessive apostrophes and studying mythic poetry and writing effusive blog posts in relative peace.
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